Topband: Do Short Beverages Work?

[k9la at frontier.com]

Hi to everyone,

I have a short (300ft) Beverage pointed ENE from my northeast Indiana QTH. Sometimes it helps with EU and sometimes it doesn't.

I believe the cause of this variability is that noise doesn't always arrive from the same azimuth/elevation every night (kind of like the propagation of real signals!). So I don't think one should expect a short Beverage to perform the same at all QTHs - its usefulness will depend on the angles from which noise arrives.

Picture the pattern of a short Beverage (wide main lobe with two small lobes off the back and nulls off the back and the sides) on the West Coast pointed to Africa and an identical short Beverage in the Midwest also pointed to Africa. Then put a noise-generating thunderstorm down in Mississippi. The Midwest station will say "my short Beverage works great" because the noise falls in a null off the side, but the West Coast station will say "my short Beverage doesn't help at all" since the noise is off the front side but not down that much because of the wide front lobe.

Now complicate this with man-made noise and its azimuthal variability at different QTHs. It's been said here before and I'll say it again - the only good way to determine if something works is to put it up and try it for a while.

Carl K9LA